Teacher of the week: Mr. Sexton
Posted on November 14, 2014 by Hovhannes Maghakyan in Features
Sergio Espejo
Chronicle Reporter
Next to the cafeteria, inside the school’s state-of-the-art $2.5 billion recording studio, is Robert Sexton playing the piano. Sexton does more than play the piano, he teaches students how to play the guitar, beginning through advanced choir classes, and music theory and harmony. What made him want to become a music teacher is the pleasure of studying with the greatest musicians in the world at USC. Having had this opportunity, Sexton followed the tradition of passing down what he knows to younger generations.
Like his other colleagues such as Lisa Goldschein, Kate Bridges, and Paul Itkin, Sexton stays after school to work on performing art projects. Some of the activities that he directs are all the songs that appear in school musicals, the Christmas concert, and choosing who gets to perform the national anthem at every home game. In addition, Sexton is the school choir’s (H2O) director.
Although he has been teaching in Hollywood for two years, he is not new to performing arts. Sexton has been teaching music for 20 years; seven of those years were taught in college. Out of his 20 years of teaching music, Sexton says that the talent here is unparalleled to anything that he has taught before. About 85% of his ninth graders scored an A on their first theory and harmony test.
Sexton’s goal is to make Hollywood the best performing art school in the U.S. He believes that “if you put in the work, anything is possible”. His students show what it means to put in the work; 6 of his bass singers from H2O meet with him everyday during lunch to improve their vocal abilities for the hardest vocal section to fill.
H2O used to have five-day-a-week rehearsals, but now it has added Saturday practice that lasts seven hours long. He has utmost respect to his fellow directors and the rest of the faculty and administration.
